The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri [best ebook reader txt] 📗

a Benedictine monk belonging to the convent of St. Felix and Nabor, at Bologna, and by birth a Tuscan, composed, about the year 1130, for the use of the schools, an abridgment or epitome of canon law, drawn from the letters of the pontiffs, the decrees of councils, and the writings of the ancient doctors.”

Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. iii. cent. 12. part 2. c. i. 6.

 

v. 101. To either forum.] “By reconciling,” as Venturi explains it “the civil with the canon law.”

 

v. 104. Peter.] “Pietro Lombardo was of obscure origin, nor is the place of his birth in Lombardy ascertained. With a recommendation from the bishop of Lucca to St. Bernard, he went into France to continue his studies, and for that purpose remained some time at Rheims, whence he afterwards proceeded to Paris. Here his reputation was so great that Philip, brother of Louis VII., being chosen bishop of Paris, resigned that dignity to Pietro, whose pupil he had been. He held his bishopric only one year, and died in 1160. His Liber Sententiarum is highly esteemed. It contains a system of scholastic theology, so much more complete than any which had been yet seen, that it may be deemed an original work.” Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett.

Ital. t. iii. 1. 4. c. 2.

 

v. 104. Who with the widow gave.] This alludes to the beginning of the Liber Sententiarum, where Peter says: “Cupiens aliquid de penuria ac tenuitate nostra cum paupercula in gazophylacium domini mittere,”

v. 105. The fifth light.] Solomon.

 

v. 112. That taper’s radiance.] St. Dionysius the Areopagite.

“The famous Grecian fanatic, who gave himself out for Dionysius the Areopagite, disciple of St. Paul, and who, under the protection of this venerable name, gave laws and instructions to those that were desirous of raising their souls above all human things in order to unite them to their great source by sublime contemplation, lived most probably in this century (the fourth), though some place him before, others after, the present period.”

Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. i. cent. iv. p. 2. c. 3. 12.

 

v. 116. That pleader.] 1n the fifth century, Paulus Orosius, “acquired a considerable degree of reputation by the History he wrote to refute the cavils of the Pagans against Christianity, and by his books against the Pelagians and Priscillianists.”

Ibid. v. ii. cent. v. p. 2. c. 2. 11. A similar train of argument was pursued by Augustine, in his book De Civitate Dei.

Orosius is classed by Dante, in his treatise De Vulg. Eloq. I ii c. 6. as one of his favourite authors, among those “qui usi sunt altissimas prosas,”—” who have written prose with the greatest loftiness of style.”

 

v. 119. The eighth.] Boetius, whose book De Consolatione Philosophiae excited so much attention during the middle ages, was born, as Tiraboschi conjectures, about 470. “In 524 he was cruelly put to death by command of Theodoric, either on real or pretended suspicion of his being engaged in a conspiracy.” Della Lett. Ital. t. iii. 1. i. c. 4.

 

v. 124. Cieldauro.] Boetius was buried at Pavia, in the monastery of St. Pietro in Ciel d’oro.

 

v. 126. Isidore.] He was Archbishop of Seville during forty years, and died in 635. See Mariana, Hist. 1. vi. c. 7.

Mosheim, whose critical opinions in general must be taken with some allowance, observes that “his grammatical theological, and historical productions, discover more learning and pedantry, than judgment and taste.”

 

v. 127. Bede.] Bede, whose virtues obtained him the appellation of the Venerable, was born in 672 at Wearmouth and Jarrow, in the bishopric of Durham, and died in 735. Invited to Rome by Pope Sergius I., he preferred passing almost the whole of his life in the seclusion of a monastery. A catalogue of his numerous writings may be seen in Kippis’s Biographia Britannica, v. ii.

 

v. 127. Richard.] Richard of St. Victor, a native either of Scotland or Ireland, was canon and prior of the monastery of that name at Paris and died in 1173. “He was at the head of the Mystics in this century and his treatise, entitled the Mystical Ark, which contains as it were the marrow of this kind of theology, was received with the greatest avidity.” Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. iii. cent. xii. p. 2. c. 2. 23.

 

v. 132. Sigebert.] “A monk of the abbey of Gemblours who was in high repute at the end of the eleventh, and beginning of the twelfth century.” Dict. de Moreri.

 

v. 131. The straw-litter’d street.] The name of a street in Paris: the “Rue du Fouarre.”

 

v. 136. The spouse of God.] The church.

 

CANTO XI

 

v. 1. O fond anxiety of mortal men.] Lucretius, 1. ii. 14

 

O miseras hominum mentes ! O pectora caeca Qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis Degitur hoc aevi quodcunque est!

 

v. 4. Aphorisms,] The study of medicine.

 

v. 17. ‘The lustre.] The spirit of Thomas Aquinas v. 29. She.] The church.

 

v. 34. One.] Saint Francis.

 

v. 36. The other.] Saint Dominic.

 

v. 40. Tupino.] A rivulet near Assisi, or Ascesi where Francis was born in 1182.

 

v. 40. The wave.] Chiascio, a stream that rises in a mountain near Agobbio, chosen by St. Ubaldo for the place of his retirement.

 

v. 42. Heat and cold.] Cold from the snow, and heat from the reflection of the sun.

 

v. 45. Yoke.] Vellutello understands this of the vicinity of the mountain to Nocera and Gualdo; and Venturi (as I have taken it) of the heavy impositions laid on those places by the Perugians. For GIOGO, like the Latin JUGUM, will admit of either sense.

 

v. 50. The east.]

 

This is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Shakespeare.

 

v. 55. Gainst his father’s will.] In opposition to the wishes of his natural father

 

v. 58. In his father’s sight.] The spiritual father, or bishop, in whose presence he made a profession of poverty.

 

v. 60. Her first husband.] Christ.

 

v. 63. Amyclas.] Lucan makes Caesar exclaim, on witnessing the secure poverty of the fisherman Amyclas: —O vite tuta facultas

Pauperis, angustique lares! O munera nondum Intellecta deum! quibus hoc contingere templis, Aut potuit muris, nullo trepidare tumultu, Caesarea pulsante manu?

Lucan Phars. 1. v. 531.

 

v. 72. Bernard.] One of the first followers of the saint.

 

v. 76. Egidius.] The third of his disciples, who died in 1262.

His work, entitled Verba Aurea, was published in 1534, at Antwerp See Lucas Waddingus, Annales Ordinis Minoris, p. 5.

 

v. 76. Sylvester.] Another of his earliest associates.

 

v. 83. Pietro Bernardone.] A man in an humble station of life at Assisi.

 

v. 86. Innocent.] Pope Innocent III.

 

v. 90. Honorius.] His successor Honorius III who granted certain privileges to the Franciscans.

 

v. 93. On the hard rock.] The mountain Alverna in the Apennine.

 

v. 100. The last signet.] Alluding to the stigmata, or marks resembling the wounds of Christ, said to have been found on the saint’s body.

 

v. 106. His dearest lady.] Poverty.

 

v. 113. Our Patriarch ] Saint Dominic.

 

v. 316. His flock ] The Dominicans.

 

v. 127. The planet from whence they split.] “The rule of their order, which the Dominicans neglect to observe.”

 

CANTO XII

 

v. 1. The blessed flame.] Thomas Aquinas v. 12. That voice.] The nymph Echo, transformed into the repercussion of the voice.

 

v. 25. One.] Saint Buonaventura, general of the Franciscan order, in which he effected some reformation, and one of the most profound divines of his age. “He refused the archbishopric of York, which was offered him by Clement IV, but afterwards was prevailed on to accept the bishopric of Albano and a cardinal’s hat. He was born at Bagnoregio or Bagnorea, in Tuscany, A.D.

1221, and died in 1274.” Dict. Histor. par Chaudon et Delandine.

Ed. Lyon. 1804.

 

v. 28. The love.] By an act of mutual courtesy, Buonaventura, a Franciscan, is made to proclaim the praises of St. Dominic, as Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, has celebrated those of St.

Francis.

 

v. 42. In that clime.] Spain.

 

v. 48. Callaroga.] Between Osma and Aranda, in Old Castile, designated by the royal coat of arms.

 

v. 51. The loving minion of the Christian faith.] Dominic was born April 5, 1170, and died August 6, 1221. His birthplace, Callaroga; his father and mother’s names, Felix and Joanna, his mother’s dream; his name of Dominic, given him in consequence of a vision by a noble matron, who stood sponsor to him, are all told in an anonymous life of the saint, said to be written in the thirteenth century, and published by Quetif and Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum. Par. 1719. fol. t 1. p. 25.

These writers deny his having been an inquisitor, and indeed the establishment of the inquisition itself before the fourth Lateran council. Ibid. p. 88.

 

v. 55. In the mother’s womb.] His mother, when pregnant with him, is said to have dreamt that she should bring forth a white and black dog, with a lighted torch in its mouth.

 

v. 59. The dame.] His godmother’s dream was, that he had one star in his forehead, and another in the nape of his neck, from which he communicated light to the east and the west.

 

v. 73. Felix.] Felix Gusman.

 

v. 75. As men interpret it.] Grace or gift of the Lord.

 

v. 77. Ostiense.] A cardinal, who explained the decretals.

 

v. 77. Taddeo.] A physician, of Florence.

 

v. 82. The see.] “The apostolic see, which no longer continues its wonted liberality towards the indigent and deserving; not indeed through its own fault, as its doctrines are still the same, but through the fault of the pontiff, who is seated in it.”

 

v. 85. No dispensation.] Dominic did not ask license to compound for the use of unjust acquisitions, by dedicating a part of them to pious purposes.

 

v. 89. In favour of that seed.] “For that seed of the divine word, from which have sprung up these four-and-twenty plants, that now environ thee.”

 

v. 101. But the track.] “But the rule of St. Francis is already deserted and the lees of the wine are turned into mouldiness.”

 

v. 110. Tares.] He adverts to the parable of the taxes and the wheat.

 

v. 111. I question not.] “Some indeed might be found, who still observe the rule of the order, but such would come neither from Casale nor Acquasparta:” of the former of which places was Uberto, one master general, by whom the discipline had been relaxed; and of the latter, Matteo, another, who had enforced it with unnecessary rigour.

 

v. 121. -Illuminato here,

And Agostino.]

Two among the earliest followers of St. Francis.

 

v. 125. Hugues of St. Victor.] A Saxon of the monastery of Saint Victor at Paris, who fed ill 1142 at the age of forty-four. “A man distinguished by the fecundity of his genius, who treated in his writings of all the branches of sacred and profane erudition that were known in his time, and who composed several dissertations that are not destitute of merit.”

Maclaine’s Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. v. iii . cent. xii. p. 2. 2. 23.

I have looked into his writings, and found some reason for this high eulogium.

 

v. 125. Piatro Mangiadore.] “Petrus Comestor, or the Eater, born at Troyes, was canon and dean of that church, and afterwards chancellor of the church of Paris. He relinquished these benefices to become a regular canon of St. Victor at Paris, where he died in 1198. Chaudon et Delandine Dict. Hist. Ed. Lyon.

1804. The work by which he is best known, is his